World of Warcraft's Subscribers Decline and Blizzard Promises Quicker Expansions

During the call, Blizzard Entertainment's CEO mentioned that subscriber levels had fallen down to 11.4 million this March from its former peak of 12 million. Initially, this seems staggering, but it's important to remember that subscriber levels do not decline linearly and tend to fluxuate. Furthermore, it actually makes quite a bit of sense given two factors: RIFT's launch in March and the absense of a major content patch at that point of time. The new and shiny feeling of Catalysm was disappearing by March and we've only just gotten a new patch a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, 4.1 was fairly light on content for a patch--luckily Firelands will be this summer and it looks much beefier, so it's likely a lot more people will resubscribe to check it out at that point.

In response to the declining subscriber levels, Blizzard has made some promises for WoW development speeds. They're currently looking for ways to make the process faster to reduce downtime in-between expansions. "As our players have become more experienced playing World of Warcraft over many years, they have become much better and much faster at consuming content," Morhaime said.

For the most part, he's right. Content becomes much more accessible with each expansion in conjunction with players simply improving with experience. Personally, as a player who has raided since vanilla, it's hard to really throw me a curveball anymore--and that can lead to boredom and burnout when content is cleared and there's nothing left to do but repeat kills.

Of course, if you're getting bored with World of Warcraft, there's always Diablo III to get excited for. Today's call also shed some light on the much anticipated game and Morhaime hinted towards a public beta likely for Q3 2011. While it's hard to say if Diablo III will really make it out by the end of this year, development does seem to be picking up pace and Blizzard is trying hard to get it out before 2012.

So what do you think? Personally, I'm fairly unsurprised at this recent announcement, though their response of quicker expansions seem promising to me--as long as they don't become minor ones. Expansions should be monumental changes in Azeroth and storylines; I'd hate to see it head down a route where it loses quality and depth.

Comments

Comment by bigworm2

on 2011-05-10T02:25:12-05:00

You can just about forget The Emerald Dream as a content patch seeing as how the book "Stormrage" dealt with what happened with the dream. All that action happened between the end of Wrath and the release of Cataclysm. Keep in mind, Turalyon and Alleria AND the corruption of the Bronze Dragonflight have yet to be dealt with, and Kil'Jaeden, Sargeras, more old gods, Kil'Jaeden, Sargeras(theoretically) and more old gods are still around as well.

Comment by Dawgjaw

on 2011-05-10T02:33:39-05:00

Add new content besides new tier set all together! Give the fan base what they want! Housing! Guild keeps! Housing items!

Comment by oaninor

on 2011-05-10T02:34:11-05:00

personally, Im leaving WOW because I cant play, for the brutally awesome lag that patch 4.1 brings me, and the countless bugs thats makes me wonder two things, what is the point of beta tests and ptr, and why I must pay money for suffer almost the same thing as private servers.

my guild starts to raid in 25, and I barely can do it in 10. is not the pc, because if well my pc is not a state of the art machine

Don't be silly kid... If your pc is so "state of the art" and you lag - it IS your pc that is being wierd. I'm using a 3 year old pc and I run medium quality in 25-mans, high in 10 and 5.

well, "old guy" get your glasses or learn to read:

"...barely can do it in 10. is not the pc, because if well my pc is "NOT" a state of the art machine..."

I was trying to state that maybe my pc was not the pride of silicon valley but is not so crappy to get those results. I bought a sony vaio this week, I install a fresh downloaded wow client and get the same results. btw the 64 gb ssd was a new add this week too. I have till last week a wd raptor 300gb 10krpm. I bought the ssd with the hope of raise the performance. that and windows 7 64 bit ultimate. I dont know what other fancy stuff buy to get a decent pc for just play wow. maybe a "old experience veteran" as you can teach me one or two things.

Comment by rnbw

on 2011-05-10T02:43:20-05:00

Quicker expansions, sure, but please don't let us pay the full 35 euros for them every time. We already pay 13 euros each month to play this game, and let's face it, judging from their profits, this amount could be a little lower. Also we have to pay a lot of money for the additional services (20 euros for a realm change is not... change at all, it's a substantial amount of money). If they're going to release expansions twice as quick, it'll cost quite a bit more money as well. And don't forget the game becomes more and more steep for new players. In Vanilla, you'd only have to pay the initial cost of Wow, now you already have to buy Wow, The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm. Imagine in 2-3 expansions, you'd want to start playing... good luck paying over a 100 euros just to get started.

Also, I think if expansions were released quicker, the story would evolve way too rapidly, and there would be way too much story telling to take in. I'm happy with the speed of the story in TBC, Wrath and Cataclysm. Expansions twice as quick would also mean a way quicker story line. I wouldn't like that.

With that in mind, I'd rather see bigger patches quicker (like 4.2 being released at the time of 4.1), rather than entirely new expansions.

Comment by Skallik

on 2011-05-10T03:01:41-05:00

My money is on having to down Sargeras

Comment by Exprince

on 2011-05-10T03:06:49-05:00

I completely agree on the point you made about the guild relationships.I am with my guild for 3 years now,i know everyone and we have became realy good friends by raiding,doing pvp,events and other stuff together,and that is like you said one of the few things that keep me logging on wow.

Comment by Dragoonman

on 2011-05-10T03:07:16-05:00

ADD NEW CONTENT BESIDES NEW TIER SET ALL TOGETHER! GIVE THE FAN BASE WHAT THEY WANT! HOUSING! GUILD KEEPS! HOUSING ITEMS

I don't want that.

Comment by nik666

on 2011-05-10T03:15:04-05:00

Instead of Emerald dream, I'd bet on Argus for the next expansion.

Comment by Grimora

on 2011-05-10T03:17:35-05:00

I think by now they need more accessible races (Naga, Furbolgs, Gnolls, Ogres, etc) and content (starter zones, new instances/raids/professions/classes). Not to mention REAL disguises and more costumes for us silly casuals who like our fluff. Also....

NEW FREKKIN' MODELS! How many bloody times have we seen them reuse, reuse, repaint, re-sex a model to fit their lazy needs? I can't even count them all!

I'm also still very angry that little or no effort was really put into Worgen or Golbins being more, blended in with Cataclysm. They just sorta show up, Goblins somehow reshape Ashzara while the Worgen get slaughtered and then run to the elves, and then to Stormwind? Shouldn't there be more to this story? Probably. And I don't want to buy books or comics to continue that story before the expansion hit.

I dunno, with all the rehashing, it seems one of my most favorite games is just becoming a snorefest... And the majority of new players are even more brainless than the Wrathkins. =/

Here's hoping some of them get off their arses and do something about it!

P.S. Blzz, try to keep up with Rift's releases. ;)

Comment by Suffolk

on 2011-05-10T03:18:17-05:00

Honestly I don't think it's a matter of how fast they can get the content out but more of how quick they can get the big bug fixes repaired. For example, on my server during patch 4.0.6 the battleground ques were all messed up and we had to que about 2-3 times on average to get into 1 battleground. After talking to a few GMs they promised that in patch 4.1 it would be fixed. Here we are in the new patch and it's worse than the previous patch and they failed to deliver as usual. And it's only the Horde side because I have friends who have Alliance toons on the same server and they don't have the problems. Now it takes over an hour just to get into 1 battleground.

Also balancing classes out (yes I know it's pretty hard) is also one of Blizzard's biggest downfalls. I could go on a tangent but i'll leave it as it is.

this i agree with strongly. the issues plaguing battlegrounds have been occurring since november 2010 and persist today. 6 months. that's only speaking of battlegrounds. it seems to me there has been, or needs to be, a change of operations and priorities. i've been a subscriber since may 2006, and in that time, this expansion has been the most troublesome. i'm still hooked, but i've been more curious about other hobbies lately.

Comment by Rainemard

on 2011-05-10T03:30:50-05:00

I love the game, maybe at sick limits, my life in these 3 years was floating around WOW, I was working almost exclusive for pay the subscription, pre release expansions, better and better ISP plans and better components for my pc, which btw in my country really borders the state of the art pc´s available in market, and at the end I can say that I loose the fight.

Sounds like a break from WoW is exactly what you need. But don't waste your money on Rift, pick up a non-video game-related hobby.As for your gaming experience:

-Are you the only person using your internet?-Is your connection secure (encrypted)?-Are you receiving the internet speeds promised by your ISP?

...Because I doubt it's your computer (it's better than the one I play on). It's probably a combination of your ISP throttling your bandwidth and the fact that you play on a US server when you don't live in the USA. Since you haven't mentioned trying EU or Oceanic servers, i'm going to guess you live in South America? Brazil? I guess only because I have a friend in Rio who types English in a similar way. =)

Comment by OptimusJ

on 2011-05-10T03:39:33-05:00

BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHReally? Their idea of 600K subscriptions canceled is that's because of people "DOING ALL THE CONTENT"? Seriously? No other reason come to their mind? None? Come on, PLEASE... Their own development department know that's not the reason, and made Rise of the Zandalari before the Firelands to try to correct their previous misconceptions, and yet they still say that absurd? Oh, come on...

Comment by Gaybrel84

on 2011-05-10T04:13:27-05:00

Personally, I think you're all a bunch of whiney gits. You call yourself fans of the game when all you do is complain. Seriously! If you don't like the game anymore, quit! Don't sit and ruin it for everyone who still enjoys playing it. I've been playing World of Warcraft since the very beginning and I still love it as if I had just installed the game yesterday. Why? Because I'm a true fan of the game and that's what true fans do. They don't turn their back on it just as soon as it goes through a period of negativity.

Comment by OptimusJ

on 2011-05-10T04:17:06-05:00

Personally, I think you're all a bunch of whiney gits. You call yourself fans of the game when all you do is complain. Seriously! If you don't like the game anymore, quit! Don't sit and ruin it for everyone who still enjoys playing it. I've been playing World of Warcraft since the very beginning and I still love it as if I had just installed the game yesterday. Why? Because I'm a true fan of the game and that's what true fans do. They don't turn their back on it just as soon as it goes through a period of negativity.

I don't call myself a fan of the game. I call myself a player. You call yourself a true fan and assumes that it extends to everyone else. I'm just a player and am eligible for criticism about the product I pay for.

Comment by LordAnthrax74

on 2011-05-10T04:24:51-05:00

No one thing can be blamed for dropped sub numbers, much as the causeheads like to push their pet complaint to the fore. All MMO's have a cyclic rise and fall of subs with new releases, both for their games and for other games as well. Just like I'm sure a certain amount of people got frustrated with mechanics changes to healing and boss fights that meant they couldn't stand in one place and push one button over and over to win every fight, and stopped playing. Same with people getting tired of playing, not feeling there's enough new stuff to do, etc. etc. etc.

I have no doubt Blizzard is on top of things. They'll look at why it's happening and weigh the consequences of changing things to increase their income versus change causing additional loss.

Comment by Gaybrel84

on 2011-05-10T04:43:11-05:00

@ OptimusJ

I made a general observation. It wasn't a direct attack on you specifically. I'm sure you're a lovely person with a heart of gold but I honour my early morning wank more than I honour your opinion. Also, I didn't say that everyone was a true fan. I said I was a true fan so please, read before you troll!

Comment by Psychotic

on 2011-05-10T04:46:29-05:00

@ OptimusJ

I made a general observation. It wasn't a direct attack on you specifically. I'm sure you're a lovely person with a heart of gold and I honour your opinion more than I honour my early morning wank.

You made a generalisation aimed at every person complaining about something in this thread. That's bad in itself.

I used to be like you, telling others to simply "stop doing" whatever it was they didn't like but frankly, that's not really fair.

Not everyone wants to quit, they simply want to see fresh life sprung back into the game they've enjoyed playing for over 5 years. Especially after the amount of money many players have spent playing the game.

Not everyone who pays tax and complains about their government want to move, either. They want their country they currently live in to improve. Moving doesn't solve the problems. Neither does simply "quitting" a game.

Comment by Gaybrel84

on 2011-05-10T04:56:30-05:00

@ Psychotic

Look I said what I said and I don't regret it. That's what I feel on the matter. If you want to hit me with some bull*!@# propaganda about governments and what not, then direct it to someone who gives a f**k!

Comment by Vash2214

on 2011-05-10T05:12:43-05:00

Seriously considered quitting myself. Only due to the lack of OK players... I know they are trying to keep players by submitting to some of the QQ but it's getting ridiculous. Me(playing since BC) and my husband(Classic old fart) run a guild that has evolved into almost just for helping players learn how to play the damn game and the class they picked. I've got newer players that hit 85 eventually and we have to *try* and teach them how encounters work. Big emphasis on the try part!

I don't even have words for how /facepalm it can be some days...

'I haven't trained for that move yet.'

'Ooooh so skull means kill first?'

'I'm not supposed to stand in that?/If I move my dps won't be as good.'

'Defensive stance is for arms right?'

'Pack will make the fight go faster.'

And many... many... more.

Comment by roguecrafting

on 2011-05-10T05:15:48-05:00

A main reason i notice a decline amongst my friends, is they are all tired of bots,hackers,and the broken economies the bots cause. On the realms i play on, there are a ton of bots farming cata ores and plants, and frankly it´s annoying that they don´t do much about it. Another reason i hear complaints and friends quitting, is the horrible experience in random dungeon finder, they might get grouped with a guy they cannot stand, that is ninjaing everything, and just plain being annoying. Yet when they go to vote kick him, it says they cannot be kicked for another 2 hours. Ive run into that one myself, and frankly it can be annoying, because you have to choose, whether to drop and wait for the debuff to wear off, or deal with the guy being an idiot, mostly on purpose. Also, as was stated before, need new models >_>, the recycled crap is old and boring now. new content, new models, and fix the hacking/botting, improved dungeon/raid systems, and people will be back before you can finish typing in your credit card number.